Aldridge's Drew McOnie is in the finals of TV show So You Think You Can Dance

AT THE age of nine, Drew McOnie melted hearts when he played the little boy in the hit stage production of The Snowman.

AT THE age of nine, Drew McOnie melted hearts when he played the little boy in the hit stage production of The Snowman.

Now he wants to warm up our Saturday nights by starring in the new high-energy BBC1 series So You Think You Can Dance.

Drew, 24, is one of the final 14 dancers whittled down from thousands who applied for the contest.

The live shows start tonight, with the finalists trying to impress judges Nigel Lythgoe and Arlene Phillips and win viewers’ votes.

For Drew, this is the fulfilment of a dream which began nearly 20 years ago, when he was a pupil at Cooper and Jordan Primary School in Aldridge.

He laughs: “I would gather my friends together in the playground to recreate scenes from West End shows!

“I was choreographing even then. I’d go to see something like Cats at the Birmingham Hippodrome and wished I had thought of the ideas first. Then I would make my reluctant friends stand in patterns.”

There is no theatrical background in his family – his mum Pam was a nurse and his father Ian works for a gas firm – but they paid for his dancing lessons from the age of six.

He learned disco and later ballet and tap at Walsall Academy of Dance.

Then at nine he won the part of the original boy in the stage version of The Snowman. The Birmingham Rep production also played in the West End.

“That’s a role that will stay with me forever, because it was filmed,” says Drew.

At 11, Drew left Hydesville Tower School in Walsall when he won a scholarship to Tring Park School for the Performing Arts in Hertfordshire.

He owes much of his success to his relationship with choreographer Matthew Bourne.

“I think he’s a genius and wrote to him explaining my passion for his work.

“When I left school I was invited to audition for his company and was cast in the world premiere of his ballet Edward Scissorhands.”

Matthew also mentored Drew when he was chosen to turn Prince Charles’s book The Old Man Of Lochnagar into a children’s ballet.

He brought that show back to his childhood haunt of the Birmingham Hippodrome, and now he’s working on another show with a Midland link, as So You Think You Can Dance is hosted by Sutton Coldfield’s Cat Deeley.

“She’s lovely and always so charming.” says Drew. “She has such a great rapport with the contestants, we feel like her friends.”

At stake is the kudos of being named Britain’s favourite dancer, plus £100,000 and the chance to dance in the American version of the show.